Hurry, Hurry

Reese set her book down next to me and crawled into my lap. I immediately recognized the cover and title, though I haven't read it in many years. My mom saved my collection of children's books and she gave them to me when Reese was born. Between those and Reese's own growing collection of books, we still haven't read them all. 

I read the title out loud, "Hurry, Hurry." I recalled the words with ease as I read to Reese about "Funny Old Miss Mugs" and her inability to do anything at a relaxed pace. 

"Hurry, Suzie, brush your teeth... Hurry, eat your breakfast.... Hurry, put your shoes on... or you will be late for school." 

As she rushes Suzie along to school, Miss Mugs runs into one problem after another. She runs into the milkman, trips a lady walking her dog, falls through a manhole, and gets scooped up by a bulldozer. She's in such a hurry that she forgets to say "sorry" to those she inconveniences and she forgets to say "thank you" to the people who help her out of her messes. As she rushes off, each person warns her, "Don't be in such a hurry or something worse may happen!"

Finally, Miss Mugs walks into a ladder with a large bucket of glue on top. The glue covers her from head to toe. Suzie helps her get cleaned up, but she is unable to remove the glue from Miss Mugs' shoes. Miss Mugs has no choice but to walk very slowly, and she quickly discovers that it is much more enjoyable (and much less hazardous) to slow down and lighten up. 

Yikes, that sounds a lot like me, I thought. I've always been one of those ninety miles an hour people. Always thinking ahead to the next task. Never getting enough done. Never fully relaxed. Missing out on opportunities to experience the fullness of my life and the depths of my gratitude for it. Too busy to pray. Too busy to breathe. Too busy to notice. It makes a giant glue spill sound rather inviting.

The next morning, I got my kids out of bed and started the breakfast routine. As I lowered Allie onto the living room floor, a sharp pain in my lower back brought me to my knees. I don't know much about back injuries, but I knew I must have pinched, pulled, or strained something important. I made my way over to the couch and got back to my feet, but it was a struggle. I quickly learned that I could still function as long as I avoided sudden or unnecessary movements. 

I stood up slowly. I shuffled to the kitchen slowly. I made breakfast slowly. After breakfast I sat down to play with my girls. My phone range in the living room. I ignored it. The dryer buzzed in the laundry room. I didn't get up. Every few minutes, I felt an urge to go do something... this room needs to be vacuumed... that desk is awfully dusty... did I ever pay the insurance bill?  

Normally, I respond to those urges. Hurry, hurry. Get everything done. 

Only I couldn't hurry. I couldn't do much of anything. For nearly a week, I shuffled around the house. Like the glue on Miss Mugs' shoes, the twinge in my lower back kept me in check. I played with my kids without feeling guilty that messes were piling up. At the end of the day, I listened to my body's need for rest rather than my head's desire to restore order to my living room. I prayed more. I breathed more. I noticed more.  

It's been over a week, and I feel totally normal again. As ability to "hurry, hurry" returns, I am grateful for the quick recovery but I am also thankful for my real life Miss Mugs' reminder that "it is quite a joy to move slowly, and a terrible bother to hurry."

I Got This.

I tucked two Xanax inside a tiny zipper pouch and stuck it in my purse. I couldn't take the whole bottle because, well, they weren't mine. I just happen to know someone who graciously (and illegally) agreed to help me ease my flight anxiety. Just before boarding the plane to San Diego, I ducked inside a bathroom at Midway Airport to stifle the panic. I pulled the coin pouch from my purse but as I dumped the pills into my hand, somehow both of them hit the floor. The wet, dirty, public bathroom floor.

I turned around but the space behind me was empty. I wasn't surprised. I've been known to be rather clumsy and it's quite possible that I'm just that much of a klutz. Even though there was no one around, I wasn't desperate enough to retrieve the pills from the floor. I turned to leave the restroom, but instead of melting down into an all-out panic attack, I laughed a little as I pictured God's message in that moment:

Seriously, Lisa? Just get on the plane. Trust me. I got this.

It really is a silly fear. I felt silly packing Xanax to begin with. I felt silly Googling "the odds of dying in a plane crash" the day before my flight. And I felt silly adding "would have to fly" to my list of reasons not to go to the wedding.

It's ok. He's got this.

I returned to my seat at the gate and offered up my fear. The flight to San Diego was smooth and easy, and I was proud of myself for "letting it go and letting God," as they say. I knew He would come through for me, and He did.

I had a blast at the wedding and enjoyed a much-needed break from the demands of full-time motherhood. The bride has been one of my closest friends since middle school, and I couldn't imagine having been anywhere else on her wedding day. Her husband is from Malaysia, and I found so much beauty in God's ability to unite two people who were born and raised over 14,000 miles apart.

When I witness such amazing examples of His work, I feel silly for not trusting Him with my silly fears. Totally absorbed in the happiness of the day, I looked out at the ocean and breathed in deep gratitude, awe, and joy.

He's got this. He's got all of this.

The following evening, I sat at Gate 1 at the San Diego airport. My thoughts didn't even wander toward the now-empty zipper pouch in my purse. I boarded the plane without any fear.

He's got this.

An hour into the nearly four hour flight, the air got bumpy. In my heightened sensitivity, every little jolt felt like a 10,000 foot dive. I tightened my seat belt and gripped the arm rest. Just minutes after lighting the "fasten seat belt" sign, the crew announced that they would also be taking their seats and that call buttons should only be pressed in the case of a medical emergency.

Almost instantly, my trust and awe dissolved into worry and anger.

Really, God? I thought You had this.

Isn't that the way it works for most of us? It's easy to be thankful for joyful moments. It's easy to have faith when things are smooth. It's easy to feel blessed when life is good. The real tests of faith come in difficult moments, when things are hard, and when life is challenging.

On the flight home, I was acutely aware of the difference in my attitude on a smooth flight compared to a bumpy one. It looked a lot like the difference in my attitude on an easy day compared to a difficult one.

Sometimes I feel guilty in my weak moments because too often I hear that worry and anxiety imply a lack of faith or a lack of trust in God's plan. But I don't think it's the worry and fear themselves that are a cause for guilt. It's our response to that worry. It's whether we choose to wallow in fearful anger or to humbly accept God's curve balls and to find strength in our suffering to turn toward Him rather than away.

Choosing the latter, I clicked the button on my Kindle and selected The Bible from my reading list. Among the first passages I read was:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5-6 

It's definitely harder to keep our eyes toward God in the midst of life's turbulence. Uncertainty, adversity, worry, and fear give rise to doubts about His plan and the intentions behind it. But if we can find a way to listen, He will find a way to say...

Trust me. I got this.

Make a Card Collage

We flip through our wedding albums every year on our anniversary. We have two because one is our formal photography pictures and the other is a scrapbook that documents our journey from engagement to honeymoon. I'm an avid scrapbooker, and I love finding fun and creative ways to recreate our best memories on paper.

I still remember the week I spent scrapbooking our wedding memories. I sat in our living room surrounded by pictures and construction paper. To my left was an box of wedding cards. I dumped the box on the floor, still trying to decide if what I was about to do was a good idea. 

It's a great idea. What else are you going to do with them? No one ever pulls out their old wedding cards. They are destined for either the garbage can or a dusty storage shelf. Just do it.

Wincing just a bit, I took a pair of scissors and started shredding. I spent hours cutting the messages and handwritten signatures from each of our wedding cards. I spent even more hours perfectly arranging them on page after page of our scrapbook.

It turned out to be one of my favorite sections in our album. I read through them at least once a year, and now I make collages with cards from every scrapbooked occasion.

Baby Showers

Reese's Birth

So if you have a box of wedding cards (or baby cards or 1st birthday cards) tucked away somewhere that you'll probably never read, grab a pair of scissors and start shredding! What else are you going to do with them?  

Lessons from a Past Regret

Two months ago I stood in my kitchen holding an invitation to my best friend’s wedding. I read the print as if I didn’t already know the details. Sunday, June 16, 2013. San Diego, California. Why does it have to be in San Diego? I clipped the invitation to the refrigerator wondering how long I would wait to tell her that I had decided not to go.

Feeling guilty for my decision, I silently listed my reasons. It made me feel better. It’s not really a choice. I just can’t go.

For starters, I’ve never been a great flyer and ever since my semi-emergency landing situation in 2008, I’ve become an awful flyer. (Actually, I’ve only flown once since then but it was enough for me to know that my level of fear has skyrocketed past uneasiness and is now orbiting straight-up panic attack).

I can’t go.

And now we’ve got this house and these two kids and I don’t work and money doesn’t grow on trees and ticket prices are high – not to mention hotel rooms, meals, and the high cost of everything in California (or so I’ve heard).

I can’t go.

PLUS, I’ve never left my kids. Ever. I’ve left town without my children one time since Reese was born. One time! Matt and I went to Chicago for a weekend getaway - we didn’t even leave the state. How can I go across the country without them? What if they get sick or hurt or they just need mommy?

See?

I can’t go.

After convincing myself that this was not a choice made by me but by factors outside of my control, I made my peace with it. Her parents are having a reception here in July. I’ll go to that. There. Now I really felt better. Well, that’s the end of that.

A few weeks later, I was clearing out my office/guest room/catch-all-disaster (because I'm finally giving in to my desire for an official play room). I filled a small box with my framed diplomas, pictures, and other decorations. I paused as I grabbed the picture of my brother in his Marine uniform. That picture is all I have of the experience of his graduation. I don’t remember the ceremony. Because I wasn’t there.

I chose not to go for a lot of the same reasons. Mike had advised me against bringing Reese because of the lack of accommodations for a baby. He warned me that we would be outside all day in the heat with few (if any) convenient places to change or nurse her. As a new mom (and a generally high-strung person), I didn’t think I could handle that. But I also couldn’t handle the thought of leaving her…. AND I probably would’ve had a panic attack on the plane and I had just quit my job and money doesn’t grow on trees and...

I should’ve gone.

Until then I didn’t realize that I had never really made peace with my decision. Even though I did what I thought was best at the time, I wish I hadn’t let fear, discomfort, and uncertainty cause me to miss such an important milestone in my brother’s life.

If I could do it over again, I wouldn’t miss it.

I didn’t add his picture to the box. Instead I took it out of the frame and walked it to the kitchen. As I clipped it to the refrigerator next to Katie's wedding invitation, I saw my handwriting on the back.



People talk about living without regrets and I don't know if such a person exists, but I feel sorry for anyone who truly has none. Some of my deepest regrets and biggest mistakes have taught me the most valuable lessons of my life. Often the choices I would change if I could go back and do it over are the ones that shine a light on an opportunity to go forward and do it better.  

My flight leaves Saturday morning.

A Serious Accident

I should start this one by saying that neither of my kids is hurt, but we were all a little shaken. I’m sharing this story because I never thought anything like this would ever happen to us, and I can’t imagine how horrifying of a situation we could have had if one small detail of this accident had been different.

Last night Matt and I planned a date night to celebrate our five year anniversary. I was in our bathroom curling my hair while Matt and the girls played on our bedroom floor. Neither of us are sure of the exact chain of events because everything happened so fast, but I remember hearing a loud noise and a panicked yell. I dropped my curling iron in the sink and turned toward the bedroom just in time to see our dresser and everything on it tumbling forward.

I was too far away to catch anything (or anyone) as everything came down – including a DVD player and flat screen TV. Matt dove in front of the dresser and I lunged toward the kids. The plugs ripped from the outlets and the DVD player and TV crashed to the floor. Both kids were immediately in hysterics, and I started assessing for injuries as Matt pushed the dresser back in place. By the grace of God, Allie wasn't hit by anything. Just a few minutes earlier, she was laying where the DVD player fell, but she's been working on her army crawl and had managed to inch herself out of the way. I didn’t see what hit Reese, but she was crying and saying her head hurt and that the TV hit her. We didn’t find any bumps, and a few minutes later she was acting normal again. We think she may have been hit by a picture frame, but we never did find any marks on her.

For several minutes after we all settled down, we sat on the floor holding our kids and forcing our minds away from the horrific images of what could have been.

Maybe we’re naïve, but we had no idea that could happen. Oh, we’ve heard of furniture tipping over and hurting or even killing small children. We know that TV’s are dangerous and that furniture should be bolted to the wall, but we thought our setup was safe. Our dresser is tall enough that the kids can’t reach up and pull the TV down, but it's wider than it is tall so it doesn't seem top heavy. It sits on a level floor and it’s a high quality dresser – one I always thought was too heavy for a three-year-old to topple.

I always thought the tipping hazard was a result of kids climbing in open drawers, but Reese was just opening and closing drawers and relocating her doll from one drawer to the next. The drawers are small but they're on rollers and they don't pull all the way out. We think she just had too many drawers open at once and the weight of the clothes made it just heavy enough to shift the center of gravity, making it possible for one small tug to take it off balance.

After we discovered that everyone was okay, we finished getting ready and went on our date. On the way we stopped at Lowes and picked up brackets to attach all three of the dressers in our house to the walls.

Looking back, I remember very specific moments where I thought certain pieces of furniture should be more secure but I never acted on that hunch. I just didn’t think it would happen. And even though we had to find out the importance of it the hard way, I’m so very thankful that we didn’t find out in a devastating way.

I know we’re not the only parents with unsecure furniture in the house. I don’t know why it’s so common to wait until something happens to address a potential hazard, but don’t do what we did. If you have dressers, desks, and bookshelves that are not secured to the wall, please consider doing it. Watch your kids in other people’s homes, and make sure they stay clear of furniture that isn’t stationary.

Things happen quickly, and parents certainly can’t prevent everything, but in this situation we didn’t even know there was something to prevent in the first place. I hope this story resonates with other parents who assumed that a toddler can’t tip a dresser or that certain things are not a fall risk. Know that it can and does happen to anyone in any house. And when you have these occasional close calls - as we all do - be thankful for the eye opener and try not to dwell on the what-ifs. Don't let your mind trick you into thinking that it wouldn't have happened to a better dad or a more attentive mom. And don't let those thoughts stop you from sharing your story with other parents. Your close call could prevent someone else's tragedy. 

Birthday Party Mania!

This might seem a bit out of the ordinary compared to my usual content, but I can explain. We just celebrated Reese's 3rd birthday and during her party I had several people make "this should be on Pinterest" comments. I'm not necessarily all that creative in any particular area, but every now and then I come up with random things that turn out to be pretty cool (or so I'm told). I thought it would be fun to add a new element to this site, so consider this my first venture into a new type of blog post. Now, I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with a lot of these things, but everything I post here will always  be my own ideas (unless otherwise credited).

I figured I would start with the two things that generated the aforementioned Pinterest comments... 

I'm not big into huge expensive birthday parties - especially for little kids who don't know the difference. I didn't choose a theme for any of Reese's birthday parties. I made the cakes myself and bought whatever decorations and paper products happened to be on sale. My goal is always to make the day as nice as possible while spending as little money as possible - a process I find to be way more fun anyway.

My biggest challenge every year is the cake. I have no formal cake decorating skills whatsoever (actually, the cake for Reese's first birthday was my first attempt ever). I thought it would be fun to try to do something completely different every year so this year I decided to follow the cupcake trend. The cupcakes were very simple so I wanted a nice display. I didn't have a display tower so instead I used Reese's Little People Disney Princess castle... 

I also wanted to do some kind of game or activity with the kids - something that would be fun, cheap, easy to put together, and manageable for a bunch of three-year-olds. We live on two acres so we ended up doing a goodie bag scavenger hunt and the kids loved it!  

I gathered 10 buckets from around the house. (Random buckets are on my list of things I never pass up at garage sales so I always have a bunch). I filled each one with a goodie bag item (so one bucket had pencils, another had sand box toys, another had bottles of bubbles, and so on). Then I set up a table with crayons, stickers, and white paper bags with each child's name. Inside each bag was a checklist of the things they needed to find. We corralled all the kids into the garage to decorate their bags, and while they were doing that Matt placed the buckets around our property. We turned the kids loose (with parents in tow to help read the checklists), and they put together their own goodie bags with the 10 items from the buckets. It went over so well that we will likely make it a birthday party tradition!

Thanks for joining me today. Keep watching for more fun tips, creative gifts, really random ideas, and (as always) inspiration stories and moments worth sharing. For easy access to new posts, you can now follow my blog on Pinterest.  Have a blessed day! 

On Being Loved

Meet the fifth member of our family:

This is Reese's security toy. I got him from my graduate assistant at ISU while I was still pregnant (which means I have a floppy-eared representation of my former career dragging lifelessly at my daughter's side everywhere we go. It's great). His name is Mono (like the illness) because there was a time when she thought every small furry animal was a cat. She would point to him and say “meow” but it sounded more like a high pitched “mono” and the word stuck. We always get a good laugh when she turns to random strangers and says, "I have Mono."

Reese - 9 months

When we take Mono out in public people often smile and say, “That is one loved bunny.” And loved he is. She doesn’t go to sleep without him. There have been many just-before-bedtime searches for Mono when Reese forgets where he's been “taking his nap.” She doesn’t leave the house without him either. There have also been a few three-point turnarounds on the road to town when she discovers that we’ve left him at home. Mono often joins us at the dinner table; he appears in family pictures; and Reese always adds a “thank you for Mono” to her nightly prayers. Yes, he is one loved bunny.

Sometimes people ask me if I've ever considered attempting to replace him with a new one. Of course not. I know Reese would never accept a different bunny - even a seemingly nicer, newer version of the one she has. She doesn't care that he's had everything imaginable scrubbed out of his fur. She doesn't care that he's now more gray than white or that the material on his nose is rubbed off. She doesn't care that his fur isn't soft anymore or that he smells kinda funny even after a trip through the washer. To Reese, Mono has always been the perfect companion. The flaws just don't matter. She loves him and she can't see what other people see.

When I look at Reese's attachment to Mono, I realize how silly our struggles with self-image really are. We judge ourselves by our appearance, but the men who married us and watched us carry their children don’t focus on our stretch marks or cellulite. They don’t see the flaws that we see. Instead, they see a perfect companion.

We judge ourselves by our mistakes, but the people who know and love us to our deepest core don’t focus on our misspoken words or neurotic tendencies. They don’t see the flaws that we see. Instead, they see a dear friend.

We judge ourselves by our shortcomings, but the God who loves and forgives unconditionally doesn’t focus on our lapses in judgment or deepest regrets. He doesn’t see the flaws that we see. Instead, He sees a loved and worthy creation.

If you are fortunate enough to have people in your life who know, love, and accept you at your best and worst, then you, too, are "one loved bunny" and nothing else matters. None of those people would prefer another you – even one that appears more perfect on the surface.

That pure unconditional love reminds me of this passage from the 1922 children's classic The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. She writes:

"When a child loves you for a long, long time - not just to play with but really loves you, then you become Real... It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time... Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don't matter at all because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Reese - 3 years

Are You an Over-Protective Mom?

I'm starting to think I might be an over-protective mom. I became aware of it for the first time last month when we went to a birthday party at a kids’ gym where the kids and parents were separated by a waist-high wall. During the party, I was very aware of my discomfort with this setup, and I was bothered by how much I was bothered. Since then I've been highly aware of my desire to continue the coddling and hand-holding hallmarks of the infant and toddler years. 

I don’t like admitting this. It’s a little painful and slightly embarrassing. I’m a rescuer – and not in a heroic way but in a “Back off, Mom!” kind of way. I swoop in to head off moments of frustration or disappointment. I do things for my kids that they should be able to do themselves, and my worry of “what might happen” clouds my ability to enjoy watching them do anything that carries even the smallest risk.

This is exactly the situation I always wanted to avoid - I always feared that my controlling ways and worry-wart tendencies would stifle my children. In the absence of self-awareness and conscious effort, I know I could easily become an over-bearing, over-controlling, and under-empowering force in their lives.

As much as I’m bothered by this, I take comfort in two things. One, I’m now aware of it, which is an essential component of change. And two, I know I’m not the only mom whose good intentions to protect and rescue sometimes get out of control. But as much as it comes from a place of genuine love, that doesn’t make it less problematic. Most of us are guilty of over-involvement from time to time, but when the mama bear remains in check and breaches in boundaries are acknowledged, permanent ramifications are unlikely.

If you’re anything like me, it might take a little more effort to keep those tendencies in line, but fortunately, having those tendencies isn’t the problem. It’s failing to recognize and rein them in that causes issues. Recognition and self-awareness are the first steps toward change, so take a moment to test yourself on these common habits:

Rescuer: These moms find it unbearable to watch their children experience negative emotions (frustration, disappointment, sadness, etc.) They are quick to solve their children’s problems and assist them with simple tasks. They can become lax in their discipline style because they can't bear the tears that go along with enforcing rules and setting limits. Rescuers’ tendencies usually stem from their inability to withstand the negative emotions (i.e. helplessness, sympathy, etc.) brewing in their own psyches as they watch their children navigate the bumpy road through life’s necessary challenges. The adult children of chronic rescuers tend to underestimate their abilities and have poor problem-solving skills.

Hoverer: These moms do everything in their power to eliminate risk of physical harm or illness. Yes, it is our job to protect our children from life’s hazards, but hoverers take it to an extreme. They often resemble rescuers, but the motivation is different. Hoverers can withstand their children’s frustration while learning to tie their shoes but not the physical pain of a scraped knee. Hoverers’ tendencies usually stem from a desire to prevent the feelings of guilt that come with seeing their children with an injury or illness that might have been prevented had they been more diligent and protective. The adult children of chronic hoverers tend to view the world as a dangerous place and to shy away from trying new things.

If either of these behaviors resonated with you, fear not. Instead, be proud of your ability to recognize and label them. Greater awareness leads to faster change. If you're a rescuer, lean into the discomfort that comes with watching your child struggle while mastering a new skill and dismiss the urges to provide unnecessary help. If you're a hoverer, lean into the uneasiness that comes from not wiping every public surface they touch and dismiss the guilt demons that tell you every injury is your fault.

Most importantly, always practice self-compassion and patience when you find that you've stumbled into an over-protective pattern. Remember that these behaviors stem from a place of deep, genuine love. The intent of over-involved parents is never to harm their children. Instead, they aim to help, support, and protect. Unfortunately, in their extreme forms, these habits can have lasting effects. Over-protective parents not only run the risk of instilling fears in the hearts of their children, but they risk missing out on watching their children become their truest selves and fulfill their highest potential.

Over the weekend, I experienced a profound moment that perfectly illustrates the plight of the over-protective parent and the importance of developing the awareness and willingness necessary to enact change...    

Reese got a kite for her birthday and all week she begged me to fly it, but our property is thick with trees so instead I promised her we would take with us to my mom’s house for Memorial Day weekend. We pulled into the driveway and she couldn’t wait to get it out. I showed her how to get it started, and waited for her squeals of joy as it began to take flight. The kite was less than 10 feet above my head when she started yelling.

“Stop, Mommy, stop! Take it down!”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“I’m afraid it’s gonna fall.”

“Well, if it falls to the ground we’ll just start again.”

“But it might blow away or get broken.”

I wanted to promise that it wouldn’t get lost or broken or stuck in a tree, but I couldn’t because all those things were possible outcomes of kite flying. I did my best to reason through it.

“Sweet Pea, kites are made to fly. If we never fly it, then we'll never know how much fun it is and we'll never see how high it goes.”

She couldn’t get past it. I tried to force it for a few more seconds, thinking she would catch on and forget about the danger, but she started to cry. I let the kite float toward the ground, and it came to rest on the grass. She ran over to it and scooped it up.

“I want to put it back in the car.”

I walked her to the car and opened the trunk. She laid it in gently and ran back toward the swing set. I closed the trunk and joined her on the swings. The kite stayed in the car all weekend.

It didn't fall. 

But it also didn't fly. 

Coincidence or God Incident?

I sat in the Aldi parking lot drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as the gray cloud overhead spit intermittent raindrops on my windshield. Just two minutes earlier, I reached for the “Aldi quarter” in my cup holder and came up with a gum wrapper. I tossed it into the passenger seat and pulled my wallet from the diaper bag. No cash. None. I checked every crevice of my vehicle. Nothing. So I drummed angrily on the steering wheel as if my frustration had the power to manifest spare change.

I already had one of those mornings. Expired milk, spilled coffee, crabby infant, potential downpour. I knew I should have stayed home. But I went out anyway and now there I was in the Aldi parking lot having a very ridiculous “why me” moment. I eventually gathered my thoughts and surveyed my options. None of them was appealing – probably because I was already aggravated.

Meanwhile, Allie’s fussiness had turned into an all out scream fest. Still undecided about how to solve my original problem, I stepped out of the car and went around to Allie’s side. Her pacifier hit the ground as I opened the door. Really?! I bent down to pick it up and there at my feet was a shiny silver quarter.

My in-laws would call that a “God incident.” When I first met Matt’s family almost eight years ago, I didn’t know what that meant. Before then, I had never thought of God as an active participant in my life. The whole concept seemed really far-fetched. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God. I had always believed in God. I just didn’t think God believed in me.

There are just so many of us in the world. There is so much suffering and so many unanswered prayers. It seemed like God should have bigger things to worry about than arranging convenient coincidences and reminders for kindness in my little insignificant world.

Over the years, I slowly grew into my faith. I started reading the Bible and trying to live its message. I began to see real acts of God in my daily life, and instead of nodding along with ignorance when someone said “now that’s a God incident,” I began to smile with understanding.

See, I had always pictured God incidents as isolated events involving intentional interventions on the part of our Creator; as if a Divine hand reached down and placed a pen in my dryer to teach me about grace or perfectly timed the stop lights to prevent my tardiness for an important appointment. Looking at them from a small-scale perspective, it is easy to dismiss the possibility of God’s involvement.

But I have come to believe this about God: He doesn’t operate on a small scale level, nor is His involvement in our lives limited to certain events on certain days at certain times. He is ever-present at all times and in all things. His carefully crafted and perfectly orchestrated universe lends itself to these “coincidences” simply because everything in it is entangled in a web of simultaneous existence. The complexity of that existence and the depth of our connection to it are revealed to us in the events that those of us who don’t yet know better would call “coincidences.”

Today, I know better. That’s why I sat crouched in the Aldi parking lot whispering a prayer of gratitude to the Great Orchestrator. It’s not that I think God knowingly placed a quarter under my car to offset my crappy morning. It’s that I believe He created a world that allows the lives of the dropper of a quarter and the finder of that quarter to overlap for a single moment in time. And I believe that if you can see God’s presence in the smallest of things, you can begin to find Him anywhere and everywhere.

Now that I know how to spot His work, God shows up in my life every day. Sometimes He leads me to small things like quarters in parking lots. Sometimes He leads me to big things like houses and jobs. Sometimes it’s a surge of grace and compassion, comfort and healing, or courage and strength on the right day at the right time. Sometimes it’s the urge to give, the will to forgive, or the power to carry on amid the struggles He needs me to face. His form often changes but His presence never does. 

Over time, faith and patience have slowly begun to take the place of the worry and urgency in my life. My last paycheck will hit our account this week, which means the small gap in our income will soon return. Last week I opened an email from some friends who are moving to our subdivision this summer. They wanted to know if I would be interested in watching their three-year-old daughter three to four days a week through the school year. I always said I had absolutely no interest in taking on someone else’s kid unless it was part-time excluding summer for someone I knew who was the same age as Reese. Coincidence? Of course not. 

In the moments where you find your life perfectly overlapped with another, whether it affects you for a single moment or the rest of your days, you can assume the events happened at random and walk away feeling puzzled. That's a coincidence. OR you can recognize your significant role in the complicated web of existence, whisper a prayer of gratitude, and walk away feeling blessed. That’s a God incident.

Lessons from a Part-Time Job

I feel like I should back track a bit before I [attempt to] dive back into my regular posting routine. I submitted the final grades for my class last night, which means my spring semester is officially over. It's hard to believe it's already May. I still don’t know what I was thinking by taking on a job and a baby at the same time, especially without hiring part-time childcare. It’s been a long semester, and I’m thankful to be back to the jobs I do for free. 

Allie is 6 months old now, and she's so adorably smiley. She's lucky she’s so cute because she's a total bearcat. She gets up at 5am every day, takes short unpredictable naps, and has a total fit if I take more than two steps away from her. My mom calls her "Velcro Baby" because she clings to me like a spider monkey and still spends a lot of her day strapped to my chest. It's a wonderful feeling, especially since I didn't get much clingy baby behavior out of Reese, but Allie’s grabby hands and steadily climbing weight have made daily baby wearing somewhat of a challenge. 

Reese will be three on May 28th, which means I spend a lot of time generating answers to questions like, “Why is it 3-o’clock?” and explaining social rules – like why we can’t just choose a random car from the mall parking lot and drive it home. She’s learning about the world at an amazing rate, and her observations are both beautifully innocent and downright hilarious. She’s an awesome kid, but she’s still a typically defiant, antagonistic, and conveniently [for her] forgetful little stinker who gives me a run for my patience every single day. 

Between keeping up with these kids and making time for my job, it’s not a big surprise that I haven’t had time for much else. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I could plan on a daily afternoon nap, but Reese hardly naps at all anymore, and Allie is a stage five cat napper. I ended up doing most of my work after they went to bed, which meant that I was often staying up way too late. Until this semester, the coffee I so often reference in my blog posts has always been decaf. That is definitely no longer the case, and I now have the withdrawal headaches to prove it.

The sleep deprivation and caffeine addiction haven’t been the only consequences of this schedule. I have skipped more meals and showers over the past few months than I would ever care to admit. It is not at all uncommon for me to make lunch for my kids and then deprive myself of a healthy meal. I’ll eat when they nap, I tell myself as I reach for a string cheese, even though I know that if they do actually sleep, I’ll choose productivity over nourishment hands down.

And forget about relaxation. It just doesn’t happen. For starters, I’m not great about finding much down time to begin with. And even when I do try to make plans to do something for me, it’s always the first thing to go when something more pressing comes up.

I came out of this experience feeling really proud of myself for the work I put into my class – even when it got hard, I never cut corners. And yet, I find it interesting that I never allowed myself to slide on anything except when it came to my own well-being.

That’s how I operate. I imagine that’s how a lot of moms operate. Skipping meals and showers, getting behind on sleep, sacrificing much-needed down time, giving up on hobbies. It seems that when life gets stressful, the first thing we do is stop taking care of ourselves.

How counterintuitive is that?! It’s during stressful times that our commitment to self-care should be at its best. I don’t know about you, but for some reason I feel guilty and selfish when I put my own needs first (or second; or third). It’s easy for me to forget that part of being a good mom means being good to myself.

I admit sometimes it's necessary to put ourselves on hold, but consistent patterns of self-neglect have a definite negative affect on everything from our marriages to our parenting skills. Lately, I've started taking notice of the times when I put my needs aside - physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, or socially. I'm trying to recognize and break some of my bad self-care habits - like not sitting down to a real lunch or failing to take time to catch up with friends. And I'm learning to give myself a little less pressure and a little more grace.   

Each season of my life seems busier than the one before, and I'm only 30! I have a lot of running around ahead of me. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking the next phase of life won't be as crazy, but something always comes up. It's taken many years for me to understand (and admit) that real peace doesn't come from calm on the outside. It comes from calm on the inside - a calm that can only settle in when our needs are fully met. 

A wise person once gave me this analogy: If you're ever in an airplane and the oxygen masks drop, there's a reason you're supposed to put your mask on first. After all, if you can't breathe, it's kind of hard to help anyone around you breathe. 

If you're one of those moms who's always going 100 miles an hour and taking care of everyone but yourself, remember to take an occasional step back and look around. If you happen to see your oxygen mask dangling in front of you, grab it and put it on - and remember that you, too, deserve to be able to breathe.

Happy Mother's Day!

I got up at 6:00am with just one goal for the morning – start a roast in the crock pot. I make pot roast all the time. It’s not a big deal. Peel and chop onions, carrots, and potatoes; season the meat; add a little water; press start. When I do it all the night before, it’s a twenty minute process, tops. Yesterday I learned that when I do it in the morning, it’s a four and a half hour ordeal.

I thought I could get it done before Reese woke up. Wishful thinking! I went to the kitchen and Reese was already digging in the pantry for Cheerios (despite being told numerous times not to take food without asking).

“I wanna eeeeeat,” she whined, as if she’d been waiting all morning for her breakfast.

I guess I’m making the roast after breakfast. No big deal. Plenty of time.

I noticed that Reese’s pajama pants were damp.

“Reese, did you pee through your pull-up?”

“I did.”

“And is your bed wet?”

“It is.”

I stripped her bed and changed her clothes. While I was at it, I got myself and Allie dressed too. Then I started her sheets in the washer and made us each a separate breakfast - Cheerios for Reese, oatmeal for me, mashed banana for Allie.

After I cleaned up breakfast, I sent Reese off to play and put Allie in her bouncy chair (at my feet, of course, because I’m not allowed to leave her sight). I was peeling the second onion when Reese appeared behind me, holding up a Wal-Mart bag.

“Mommy, I wanna do this.” It was the supplies we had bought the day before to make Mother’s Day cards.

I was thrilled. She can make cards. I can peel and chop. What could go wrong?

Well, nothing if the bag of supplies didn’t contain a bottle of Elmer’s glue and three tubes of glitter. I totally should have known better.

I spread out the tablecloth and all of the supplies. I went back to the counter and picked up the peeler. Then Allie started crying. She wanted me to hold her. She does this a lot. People tell me to let her cry, but I rarely do. Plus, I knew her crying would lead to me rushing, which would no doubt end in some kind of accidental potato peeler or Cutco knife injury.

I strapped Allie into the Baby Bjorn. (Yeah, I know. Much safer, right? Now both of our fingers were in danger). I started peeling the carrots – now at arms length because of Little Miss Grabby Hands, and I had to stop every 30 seconds or so to monitor the glitter situation over my shoulder.

It was not going well. Apparently, my little glue-sprinkle-shake demo went in one ear and out the other. I had to keep running over to stop her from sprinkling the whole tube of glitter onto one dab of glue, and she needed several reminders to decorate only the cards and not the table or her chair – or herself.

By this point, there was glitter in everybody’s hair and in my pot roast. Allie’s fussiness had escalated into a total meltdown, which reminded me that I was cutting into her naptime, and I still had a pile of potatoes to peel and chop. With an exasperated breath, I put everything on hold.

I fed Allie a bottle and got her down for a nap. Then I helped Reese finish her cards and clean up her mess. I got her a snack and turned on the Tinkerbell movie. The house was quiet. I chopped the rest of the potatoes and seasoned the meat.

At 10:30, I finally pressed the start button on my crock pot.

With Reese occupied and Allie asleep, I went to my bathroom and shut the door. I needed to decompress.

When I was pregnant with Reese, I did my best to mentally prepare for pregnancy, labor, and the financial burden of diapers and college savings. I tried to get ready for the big hurdles I knew I would eventually face – teething, potty training, discipline, sleep schedules.

I did not, however, prepare for the constancy; the intensity; the all day, every day.

I used to think Mother’s Day was about recognizing the big picture of motherhood and giving thanks to the women who birthed us and raised us, the women who love us unconditionally and would do anything for us. But those are the easy parts.

It’s the small stuff that is the real challenge of motherhood. It’s the interrupted showers and cold dinners. It’s the need to say things like “please don’t put your foot on my sandwich.” It’s the fishing-poop-out-of-the-bathtub nights and glitter-in-the-pot-roast mornings. It’s the deep breaths of patience and silent moments of prayer.

Mother’s Day is just as much about the day-to-day little picture as it is about the higher purpose, greater love big picture. My pot roast story isn’t just a funny story about a crazy morning. This is my life. This is every mom’s life. All day, every day. But few people see the intensity of our little picture routine and we don’t often talk about it, which means it often goes unnoticed.

This year, thank the mothers in your life not just for the big things, but for all the little things too. Thank them for the willingness to wear a curious infant despite the inconvenience. Thank them for supporting a toddler’s love for messy arts and crafts. Thank them for the things no one else sees - the messes made and cleaned, tantrums thrown and calmed, and tears cried and wiped. All day, every day.

And if you ever see sit down for a nice hot meal and see a shiny fleck of glitter in your food, just smile with understanding, eat it with gratitude, and know just how much love and patience is sitting on your plate.

Happy Mother's Day to the all day, every day moms!

Another Answered Prayer

Just a few weeks before Allie was born, my alma mater contacted me about teaching a class in the psychology department. I had been inquiring about a part-time position every semester since Reese was born, and had always been told that there wasn't an opening. Well, of course, the offer came at a challenging time and I knew this would be tough, but I was afraid I wouldn't be asked again if I said no. 

It turned out that the additional income would fill the second-child-sized gap in our budget almost to the dollar, and I had been wishing for some scheduled time out of the house. I saw it as a huge answered prayer for our bank account and my sanity. 

I failed to consider my unfamiliarity with the content and my complete lack of teaching experience as I made this decision. I would imagine all of that contributed to the intensity of my post-partum issues as I attempted to juggle a colicky newborn and learn the ins and outs of adolescent psychology while riding a hormonal roller coaster.

Allie was ten weeks old when I taught my first class in a small lecture hall of 65 students. Did I mention that I have a gut-wrenching fear of public speaking? Well, I do and I almost quit several times before I even started for that reason alone. After the first couple lectures, terrifying became doable and doable became enjoyable. I quickly discovered that I like every part of the job and I started believing again that - despite the challenges - this really was an answered prayer. 

As January became February and February became March, the cushion of pre-planned material slowly dwindled and soon I was planning a three-hour class full of unfamiliar content from week to week. I literally have to learn everything myself before I can present it to them. It makes me quite sad because it's an area I studied in school, but it's totally true what they say - if you don't use it, you lose it. And I lost a lot of it.

Literally every second that I'm not with my children (which isn't many), I am planning, grading, or reading. I hardly cook. Things aren't getting done around the house. Reese is watching A LOT of Mickey Mouse. And I'm exhausted because I'm up late almost every night. The gap between this Tuesday's class and next Tuesday's class closes faster than I can take a breath and I never realized that days and weeks could be so short. 

Reese will be three next month. It just doesn't seem right. It feels like she was just born; like I was just writing about her first steps. Now here I am with a five-month-old (yeah, five months already) and a child who just got registered for preschool. 

I've always heard that this phase of life goes by fast. I didn't take it to heart.

I've always heard that time seems to pass faster the older we get. I didn't think it was true.

These days time seems to be flying by at an alarming rate. Maybe because I'm busier. Maybe because I'm older. Maybe both. Whatever the reason, it bothers me that life is moving so fast. I've never had a stronger desire to lasso time than I have in recent weeks. 

That's what this has been all about. I thought God was answering my request for additional income. Then I ran into all these struggles and I didn't understand why He would clear this path and then make it so difficult to follow. But this was never about money.

This semester has been a reminder to me of how dearly I value my full-time life at home. This job prompted us to look at our finances and realize that all of our true needs are met and the "extras" just aren't worth the way time speeds up around us in exchange. I think about how I miss my friends and my evening time with Matt, and I see that they gave me all the adult time I really needed. I see myself telling Reese that I can't play with her because I need to get my work done and I remember that playing with her is the only kind of work I want to do. I see my growing list of writing ideas without an outlet, and I know that I would rather do what I truly love even in absence of a paycheck and the financial security that comes with it. and And, I see how fast these months have gone by and I know now how precious my time at home really is. 

Through this experience I learned that I would love to come back to a teaching role in higher education someday in the future. I realized how much I enjoyed my field of study and I set some goals to prevent myself from "losing it" any further. I squashed my fears of public speaking and revisited some of my long-abandoned plans to share the message of my writing with my real voice. Most importantly, I discovered that my slow, simple life is all I ever needed and no longer will I wonder if I am missing out by choosing to stay home for these few short years.

Last week I got an email from the head of my department saying that there will not be a position for me in the fall and that they will continue to keep me in mind for future openings. I can take that as a cue to start worrying about the returning gap in our budget. I can apply at other schools and search for other jobs. Or I can take a deep breath in and a big step back and thank my all-knowing God for another answered prayer.

You Are So Beautiful

Ok, ladies. Here we go with another Hearts at Home No More Perfect Moms Blog Hop. This month’s topic is “no more perfect bodies.” It's a personal one and since it's not something we openly talk about, sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one out there who has been in the place I'm about to describe. I guess I'll find out…

Before I had kids, I knew exactly what kind of mom I was going to be. No tantrums in this house. No unhealthy snacks for these kids. And as far as all that talk about moms who "let themselves go," that wouldn't be me. No, sir. I was going to get my butt on a treadmill and be rockin' my pre-baby figure in no time.

The part of me that now knows better finds this hilarious. Oh, little naive one. How's all that workin out for ya? So, I guess nobody told you that the muffin top is sit-up proof. And despite the claims of some infomercials, you might as well toss those C-cup bras because those days are OVER.

Well, that little naive one inside me doesn't see the humor. I have been mourning the loss of my pre-baby figure for months, despite the compliments of people who say, “Wow, you look exactly the same!” Trust me, I do not. Clothing hides a lot. If you saw me in the shower, you would understand. (Although I'd rather you just take my word for it).

Our honeymoon - June 2008

On more than one occasion, I have stood in front of my full-length mirror and cried about how I can no longer fill out my bras but I seem to have no problem over-filling my jeans. Then I feel vain, which makes me feel guilty, which makes everything worse (as guilt always does).

I used to be so beautiful.

I know that sounds so sad - I told you I was vain. Real beauty comes from the inside, right? I see it other people. My husband sees it in me. Why couldn’t I see it in myself?

After Reese was born, I made a pretty decent comeback (ahem, mothers of one, beware) and maybe I expected it to be that easy again. After two pregnancies and a combined 12 months of nursing (I had to quit after 3 months with Allie), I've been struggling to come to grips with where things have... ended up. And honestly, up until last weekend I thought that’s where this post might end. I didn’t know what else to say. I have a "mom body" now and I'm sad about it. The end.

But God leads us in such wonderful ways and during the Hearts at Home conference last Saturday, I wandered into a session on "dressing your mom body with confidence." I assumed it would be some frumpy lady preaching about modesty and I was always more of a “flaunt it if you’ve got it” kind of girl. The problem is that I no longer think I have IT and now I’m lost. And bitter. So there I was.

I sat quietly in the back of room. The speaker wasn’t frumpy at all. She was well-dressed and beautiful and just an awesome woman - like the kind of person who could have been talking about the mating habits of snails and I would have listened. As I sat there, I finally started to understand where my attitude had derailed. I discreetly pulled out my Kleenex as women around me probably wondered why I was getting emotional over patterned scarves and layered tank tops.

Then I really lost it when she said that our daughters will develop their sense of confidence based on our sense of confidence. How will we teach them to embrace their beauty if we can't fully embrace our own? What will they come to believe about themselves when people tell them how much they look like their mamas?

When I got home, I apologized to Matt for rolling my eyes when he tells me how good I look and for not taking his compliments to heart. Later that night, before I changed into my pajamas I stood in my full-length mirror and apologized to myself because my unwillingness to accept my imperfections blinded me to the perfect beauty that exists within them.

God gave me a body because He wanted me to respect it. Now I do. I am humbled by that. This body birthed two amazing children, children who wouldn’t exist otherwise. I am proud of that. This body isn’t damaged. It wears a badge of honor, a badge many women don’t get to wear. I am thankful for that.

February 2013

And as I stood there feeling humble and proud and thankful, I finally saw what my God, my husband, and my children already see.

I am still so beautiful.

That's why people tell me I look exactly the same - because to them I really do. That's why my husband tells me I'm beautiful every day - because to him I really am. And that's why I've had such a hard time believing that the beauty is still there - because I had heard it from everyone but myself.

Whatever imperfections you dwell on, remember that we all have things about our bodies that we’d like to change. It’s easy to assume that someone else has no complaints, but we don’t see each other in the shower or in the fitting room. All we see of others is what they choose to show us, and that’s rarely an accurate representation. If our clothes look unflattering, we change. When someone compliments our jeans, we don’t announce that we just went up a size. And when people say, “wow, you look exactly the same,” we just smile and say thank you, leaving them to think that we don’t stand in our mirrors and cry because we haven’t figured out how to embrace the perfect beauty in an imperfect body.

So love your muffin top and embrace your stretch marks. Wear your badge of honor with pride and gratitude. Remember that your self-image isn't just about you. It's also about the daughters who are developing their own sense of self every day based on what they see in you. As you continue to repeat these very important words to them, don't forget to also take a moment to stand in your own mirror and say - and believe - those same words for yourself.

You are so beautiful.

I'm also linking up with Bigger Picture Blogs today. We are celebrating March and the arrival of spring with posts that reflect the word "Rejuvenate." Join us here for more Bigger Picture Moments.

AND for more "no more perfect bodies" posts by other Hearts Bloggers, follow me to Jill Savage's blog.

Be a Champion of Imperfection

I haven't made my bed in weeks.

Sometimes I cringe when Reese says, “Mommy, you wanna go play?”

I have forgotten to strap one of my kids into her car seat before driving across town... three times. 

Did you know that I make myself feel guilty when those things happen? Think about some of your imperfections as a wife or a mother. Do you ever make yourself feel guilty about them? 

Have you ever found yourself judging another mom because of the way she disciplines her children or because she chooses to work (or not to work) or because her marriage fell apart?

Why?

Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why are we so hard on each other? 

Several weeks ago, we had some friends over for dinner. I had gone on a cleaning spree the day before (purely a coincidence), and I could see the looks on their faces when they walked into my immaculate home. I could have let them believe that this is how I really live. I could have let them leave wondering how I’m able to keep such a clean house with two small kids. I could have, but I didn’t. 

“This is the cleanest this place has been in six months,” I said proudly. (It’s fun to see the relief on another mom’s face when you admit that you’re actually quite the hot mess behind closed doors). 

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I don’t hold much back. I don’t do it because I want to air my dirty laundry on the internet or because I necessarily like having an electronic window in my living room. I do it because I believe whole-heartedly in authenticity, and I believe the areas of life where society tells us to be ashamed are the ones in which we should instead be banding together and lifting each other up. The world would be a better place if everyone could be themselves wholly and authentically without fear of judgment. 

This past weekend marked my fourth year in attendance at the Hearts at Home conference. This year's theme was No More Perfect Moms. (This is the reason for the “no more perfect…” posts in the recent Hearts at Home blog hops). Our founder and CEO, Jill Savage, wrote the book No More Perfect Moms in an effort to start a movement toward complete authenticity among the nationwide community of mothers. The  hope is for us moms to stop hiding our own flaws while judging others for theirs, to love our real life rather than longing for an ideal life, and to commit ourselves to living with guilt-free authenticity.

It's about time we make that change. It’s time for the masks of perfection to come off. It’s time we start celebrating our true authentic selves and raise a new generation of fearlessly authentic children.

Let people come over when the beds aren't made and the floors aren't swept. They'll stay anyway. Let them see the vulnerable parts of yourself and your life. They'll love you anyway. Be proud of the imperfections that make you unique. Be accepting of the mistakes that make you human. Give yourself and others the grace that comes from realizing that there are no perfect moms – just imperfect women with imperfect homes, imperfect husbands, and imperfect children.

You are not alone in any of your struggles, and if you believe that you are, it’s only because everyone around you is afraid to give those struggles a voice. Be that voice. Go out and share your story openly. Watch how many people say, “I’ve been there too,” and breathe a much-needed sigh of relief.

Breathe in the encouragement from someone who gets it.

Breathe out feelings of isolation.

Breathe in the realization that they love you anyway.

Breathe out the fear of judgment.

Breathe in acceptance.

Breathe out unnecessary guilt.

Then go forth and continue to be fearlessly, authentically, perfectly you.

** Become a champion of your own imperfections. Set yourself free from the guilt of your mistakes and abandon the urge to judge others for theirs. Share your commitment to authenticity with other moms and let’s build a new commUNITY of authentic moms raising authentic children. Pass this on to the moms in your circle and let them know that they are safe to be their true, beautiful, imperfect selves in your presence. **

Kid Logic: More Cute Stories from the Mind of a Child

It’s time again for more of the funny things kids say. If you missed the first round, you can read them here. These are some of my recent favorites...

One time Reese sneezed and then she smiled up at me and said, “I’m blessed.”

~~~~~~~

This happened while Reese was watching Cinderella:

She said, “Now she’s gonna go dance at the ball.”

“And then does she fall in love with the prince?”

“No, she doesn’t fall. She just dances.”

~~~~~~~

When I turn on the Christian music station on our Direct TV radio, Reese says “the TV is singing about Jesus.”

~~~~~~~

Reese has a tutu with a speaker in the waistband that plays “The Chicken Dance.” She wore it to a tutu birthday party and the next day she said, “Mommy, we should give [the other girls] some batteries so they can fix their tutus.”

~~~~~~~

Reese has an odd fear of public toilets because she thinks they flush too loud. One time I had her in a bathroom and she turned to another lady and said, "Mommy's gonna go potty and it's gonna be loud." 

~~~~~~~

These were submitted by readers:

My girls hadn’t been listening to me all day, and at one point, my husband said, “You girls are driving your mom crazy.” The older one answered, “But we are too little to drive.”

~~~~~~~

Our second child was about four-months-old when our older child came up to me and said, “Mommy, when are [the baby]’s mommy and daddy going to come and take him back to his own house?

Leave me a comment with your funny story and I’ll share it in a future Kid Logic post.

Happy Friday!

Life is What You Make It

"Mommy, can we go play in the snow?"

It's so hard to tell her no. "Well, not right now. It's too cold for Allie and we can't leave her in the house by herself."

"Oh, ok." She disappeared into her room and emerged a few minutes later dressed like this...

She ran up to me, wild with excitement.

"Mommy! Hurry! Come see the snow!"

She dragged me to her room, and I instinctively turned my attention toward the snow covered ground outside her window.

"No, Mommy. Right here," She scooped a pretend snowball from her carpet and held it out for me to see.

"Come on, Mommy. Let's play in the snow! But, it's very cold so you better get your hat and gloves."

How could I argue with that? I went to the laundry room and dug out a hat and my warmest pair of gloves.

When I returned in the proper attire, she launched a pretend snowball in my direction. I staggered backward, "You got me!" Then I bent down and made a "snowball" of my own. She ducked behind the rocking chair, "You missed!" I couldn't help noticing that she giggles the same way whether she's throwing a real snowball or a fake one.

We chased each other around the room, throwing pretend snow and making pretend snow angels. We built an pretend snowman and slid down pretend hills on pretend sleds. When we were done, she poured pretend mugs of hot chocolate in her tea party set and we warmed our hands and feet by a pretend fire.

As the scene unfolded, I thought back to a few specific incidents where unexpected circumstances altered my perfect plans and the resulting disappointment hindered my ability to fully enjoy myself in spite of a few hiccups. When I told Reese that we couldn't play in the snow, she could have had a tantrum. Or she could have given up and found something else to do. Instead, she put her boots on anyway.

Kids have an amazing ability to refresh an adult's perspective on life. That morning, Reese decided that she was going to play in the snow and nothing - not even the complete absence of the one thing she needed in order to fulfill her plan - was going to stop her from doing it. She simply decided what she wanted and then she found a way to create it. Not only did she succeed, but she had just as much fun as she would have if she actually was outside.

It took a two-year-old in a t-shirt and princess snow boots to remind me that life is far too unpredictable (and far too short) for us to allow our circumstances to dictate the manner in which we experience it. In any situation, we see what we choose to see. With a little shift in attitude, our challenges can become our adventures, our struggles can become our gifts, and unexpected circumstances can become windows of opportunity.

Sometimes life does knock us down, rain on our parade, and derail our plans. I think we all know what it's like to be that kid looking out the windows of our lives at something we're told we can't have - the "snow" we can't go play in. Those moments come with choices. You can resist them with a tantrum. You can give up and move on. Or you can get up and put your boots on anyway.  

For the month of March, Bigger Picture Blogs is celebrating the change from winter to spring with the theme "Rejuvenate." Join in here for more rejuvenating winter/spring moments!

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

Ordinary.

Commonplace.

Unexceptional.

Average.

Yuck.

It’s not something I ever aspired to be and sometimes I hate that it’s a pretty accurate word for my life. Too often I am reminded of my miniscule existence on this enormous planet. In today’s globally connected world, we are more aware of the expansiveness of life beyond the walls of our homes and the streets of our towns than ever before. I don’t know about you, but it makes me feel like the littlest of fish in the biggest of oceans.

I wonder if that’s why validation has become so highly valued in our society. People need to be seen and heard and reminded that their existence matters. (Hence, the constant scroll of facebook status updates and the popularity of websites like klout.com). Maybe that’s why I obsessively check my blogger stats. I need to believe that my story matters. I need something to lift me out of the realm of the ordinary… until I remember that I am among a million ordinary moms blogging about their ordinary lives. Ugh!

Rather than making me want to quit, it’s those reminders that urge me to continue. I know that my life is pretty ordinary and that fact can be discouraging. But I also know that I serve an extraordinary God and when I place pieces of my average life against the backdrop of a much bigger picture, I see glimpses of an extraordinary purpose.

So do I matter? I don’t know my worth to the whole world, and I don’t have a klout score to tell me my worth to the cyber-world. But I do know my worth to the people in my world and I know my worth to the God who placed me in it. Yes, my daily life is pretty ordinary, but my purpose and my existence are far from it. That's all that matters. 

It's been a while since I participated in a Five-Minute-Friday. Every week a prompt is released Thursday night at midnight (today's is "Ordinary"), and bloggers are asked to write on the topic for five minutes. No planning. No editing. Just five minutes straight from the heart. (Although I should admit that I couldn't stop with the clock today, so it's really Seven-Minute-Friday for me). Click the link above for more takes on this prompt from other bloggers.

Memories that Matter

Reese at 4 months

Lately I've noticed that it has become harder and harder for me to lift Reese. I usually only carry her long enough to comfort a boo boo or to transport her sleeping body from the car to her room, and the days of loading the dishwasher and making dinner with her on my hip are long gone. I suppose I could take it as a sign of just how out of shape I am now that I haven't set foot on my treadmill in over six months (which could be part of it, but in my defense, people always ask me if she's four because she's so tall). What it really means, though, is that she's becoming more of a kid and less of a baby or even a toddler.

Next fall, she will start preschool two mornings a week. She doesn't want me in the room while she goes potty (which is often because she wants to unravel the entire roll of toilet paper without interruption, but still). She is now fully conversational in her speech, and sometimes she calls me "mom." When she was a baby I remember wondering what she would be like as a kid, and as much as I love getting to know her more and more each day, I really miss that baby.

Compared to her older sister, Allie is a stage five clinger. Reese was always pretty independent, and she never had those typical toddler meltdowns when I left her in the care of anyone else. Allie will likely be the opposite. She wants to be held all the time, and I get very little done while she is awake. I spend most of my day with her strapped to my chest and most of the night with her in bed beside me. I rarely did this with Reese. Sure, I held her a lot, but if I had to do something that would be easier with two free hands, I set her down and she was usually content.

I've spent a lot of time complaining about my inability to set Allie down for more than just a few minutes at a time, and I've spent even more time complaining about her refusal to sleep soundly anywhere except snuggled up beside me in the bed that I always said would be reserved only for Matt and I. Now, as I see the baby inside Reese fading further into my memory, I'm trying to spend more time cherishing these days and less time waiting to have my hands free and my side of the bed back to myself.

When I was pregnant with Reese, the most common piece of advice I got from other moms was "take a lot of pictures and cherish every moment because it goes by fast." Other than the taking pictures part, I don't know that I really took this advice to heart or that I realized just how fast it would go. Sometimes as I carry Reese in from the car or snuggle next to her in bed, I flip through a montage of memories of the baby she used to be, and I find myself wishing for the ability to go back and do it all again.

Last week we notice that Allie has started teething, and now she's clinging to me even more. She fussy and demanding, and sometimes I get tired of it. Then Reese comes up and says, "Hold me, Mommy." I strain ever so slightly as I lift her to my hip, but I never turn down her request because someday I won't be able to lift her at all. Finally I set her down because Allie is crying to be held again. I lift Allie to my hip and notice the difference in ease, and then I look into her four-month-old eyes and I know that my days with this baby are numbered.

Every time I lift Reese, I realize just how fast these years are going by. So instead of searching for the light at the end of the teething tunnel, I'm staying in the moment as much as possible. I'm cherishing the way she chews on my finger and the comfort only my arms can provide.

As with every stage of life, the hard part will come to an end, but it takes the good parts with it too. Someday, all that will be left is an imaginary montage reel of memories and the best way to preserve precious moments with our babies to make sure those reels are loaded with as many good memories as possible.  

On the Wings of Someday

Someday...

I repeat that word to myself every time I fantasize about having a meaningful place in the writing world. And for some reason, "someday" is always enough to keep me content with my current state of affairs. It condones my habit of diving under the rug for weeks at a time when I feel discouraged by someone or something, and it lets me continue believing that I really do have every intention of pursuing my dream down the road when life is more convenient.

As much as I hate to admit it, I have been buying emotional stock in "someday" for quite some time.  

The first time I looked in the mirror and saw a writer inside me, I was eight. I wrote a story about a special teddy bear and it was "published" at our local library. Two years later I won a school-wide essay contest on the essence of the Olympic spirit. Throughout high school I never received less than an A+ on a writing assignment, and I still remember  the verbatim compliments of every teacher who encouraged me to pursue this as a career. In college, I applied for four scholarships with an essay component. I won them all.

I'm telling you this not because I want to boast. Actually, I'm rather ashamed. Sure, I'm proud of those specific moments, but what disappoints me is that I took every single one and stuffed it away as encouragement for the dream I would pursue... someday.

For twenty years after I held my very first book in my hands and knew in my heart that I was meant to write, I continued to stand on the cracked foundation of "someday." Looking back, I often wonder where I could have been if I had the courage to sidestep my pride and decide on any one of my 8,000 yesterdays that "someday" would be today.

Two years ago, I grabbed the tail end of a dream that I believed had slipped away and I slowly started reeling it back in. Two years ago today, I published my very first blog post, and in that moment I reconnected with that little girl holding her five-page, self-illustrated book about a missing teddy bear and the child determined to find him. Even though I still have a long way to go in the pursuit of that dream, I'm finally able to say that I have stopped saying I will and started saying I am.

Don't do what I did. Don't wait twenty years to start believing in your gifts, pursuing your goals, and reaching for your dreams. What plans have you packed away in the storage room of your future? Reach into that room and unpack that box. Then leap out and fly on the wings of your dreams so they never have the chance to fly off on the wings of “someday.”